ATLANTA-- Louisville and Michigan meet Monday night in the national championship game. Both with productive offenses, the two will try to exploit one another's weaknesses and deliver one more power-packed performance before clipping down the nets at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

Here's a first-take on what it will take to get the job done.

Louisville center Gorgui Dieng must play a big role for the Cardinals against Michigan in the national championship game. (AP Photo)

1. Tactic that could impact Monday night

Louisville: This Louisville team, which is second in the country in turnover percentage (27.3 percent), is used to creating easy scoring opportunities with its defensive pressure. For 33 minutes against Wichita State, though, that offensive option was nonexistent—the Shockers turned the ball over just four times in those 33 minutes, leading to just six Louisville points.

“They handled our pressure real well. I think that’s the first team that’s done that against us all year,” Louisville’s Chane Benahan said. “It was an adjustment.”

That’s good practice for Monday. With Trey Burke, the best point guard in college basketball running its offense, Michigan has the lowest turnover percentage in the country, at 14.5 percent. The Cardinals can’t count on 25 to 30 free points against Michigan, and they’ll have to play better in their half-court sets than they did against Wichita State.

Michigan: The Wolverines switched nearly everything on the perimeter against Syracuse to cut off driving angles and try to make the Orange into a jump-shooting team. Given that Louisville also is not an elite group of shooters—only 32.8 percent accuracy on 3-pointers—we might see a bit of that from Michigan in the championship game. It worked to hold Michael Carter-Williams and Brandon Triche to a combined 5-of-15 shooting from the field and only 13 points.

Trey Burke is a better matchup against Peyton Siva than he was against MCW, and 6-6 Tim Hardaway might bother 6-0 Russ Smith with his length, but it makes sense to just keep a defender in front of each regardless of who that defensive player is.

2. Starter who could impact Monday night

Louisville: Gorgui Dieng. Louisville’s starting center is a much better player than he showed against Wichita State. A lot of that credit, of course, goes to the Shockers, but the Cardinals have to make more of an effort to get him the ball. He can be a conduit for the offense to flow through—witness his eight assists in the Big East Tournament championship game—but he didn’t touch the ball much Saturday. Dieng played 30 minutes and finished 0-for-1 from the field with six rebounds, four fouls, two blocks and one turnover. Dieng, who averages 10.2 points per game, didn’t score a point or record an assist.

Michigan: Trey Burke. Burke has had more difficulty in this tournament of getting immediately to his game than he did during the regular season. He is now 8-of-31 from 3-point range in NCAA Tournament games, which is 25.8 percent. Even with those numbers added in he still is at 38.1 percent for the season, which shows how out of character this is.

Burke will not have the length of Carter-Williams, or Kansas’ 6-4 Elijah Johnson, or even South Dakota State’s 6-4 Nate Wolters to affect his vision. Siva is about the same size as Burke, depending on whose roster fudges the heights more. This would be a good time for the national player of the year (for everybody but Sporting News, as it turns out) to dominate a game and not just control it as he did against Syracuse.

3. Sub who could impact Monday night

Louisville: The Cardinals aren’t playing in the championship game without production from their bench players. Luke Hancock scored 20 points, but he’s a regular who averages north of 22 minutes per game. Tim Henderson, on the other hand, provided completely unexpected production against the Shockers.

He figured to get a few minutes as the third guard behind starters Peyton Siva and Russ Smith, replacing the injured Kevin Ware. But best-case scenario figured to be seven or eight minutes of offensive linemen production—if you don’t hear his name that’s probably a good thing because he didn’t give up points as a defender—but he far exceeded that hope. Henderson hit the two most important shots of the game, a pair of 3-pointers that cut Wichita State’s lead from 12 points to six. Those buckets sparked Louisville’s comeback.

The Cardinals will need more of that against Michigan. Ware, obviously, still is out and Smith and Siva still will need minutes of rest.

Michigan: On the official NCAA box score, he is Michael Albrecht. Many of those who followed Michigan all year didn’t even realize that was his given name. He is Spike. Saturday night against Syracuse, the 5-11 freshman was sensational, and against Louisville and its pressure defense his ability to add a second ballhandler to the Wolverines’ attack might be essential. He played only four minutes against the Orange, which is hard to believe given his enormous impact on the game. He did not turn over the ball. He made two 3-point shots. He actually outscored three Syracuse starters who played an average of 28 minutes each. It was tough for Albrecht to play for extended stretches because of his size disadvantage on the defensive end. With Louisville fielding a smaller backcourt, “Spike” might get a little more run in the title game.